Out There in the Calm Between
by nottonyharrison
Summary: Who is Steve Rogers? Who does the word think he is? What does he want the world to think of him? Who is Maria Hill? Is she SHIELD? Is she her own person? Who is Darcy Lewis? Does the world know who she is? Does she want it to?
1. Chapter 1

Unsolicited advice is one of those things that most people rarely visibly react to, instead choosing to seethe quietly in their own pit of rage. It goes hand in hand with casual misogyny, subtle racism, and people who go gluten free because it's trendy.

That's not to say everyone doesn't have that moment where they find themselves giving out advise that nobody ever asked for, which really is just human nature. But then so is getting pissed off when the third person in the space of an hour says 'All you need to do is get out there and meet people, there's no sense in hiding in your apartment every day, just _get out there_."

As if _getting out there_ is an actual thing and not just some vague directive to head to a bar, get fucked up, and hope the person that ends up fucking _you_ is more than just some skeezy barfly with a charming smile and a pickup line that seems way less cheesy after three tequilas and a jug of cheap beer.

The bustle of New York is just too much, anyway. People crammed shoulder to shoulder on the sidewalk, evenings that never really calm down, instead slipping in to nights filled with the sounds of humans going about the kind of business they do between ten at night and six in the morning. Dinner, sex, relationships, crime, laughter, partying, working, tears...

When you look at it, sitting on the couch in a fourth floor walk-up in Brooklyn isn't so bad, compared to the chaos that is waiting on the street. The internet is interesting, the History Channel plays twenty four seven if you're in the mood for an alien conspiracy, and best of all, nobody tells you to _get out there_.

That's the problem with being someone everyone else sees as larger than life. They don't understand that the world doesn't own you, or that you're not obliged to appear daily for the media's consumption. You're not there for the enjoyment of others, you won't always be right there to protect them, and you're sure as hell not going to listen to the tabloids asking where Captain America has disappeared to since the aliens came through the hole in the sky.

The world seems to think the Avengers live their lives like a circus – training together by day, partying together by night – all together in The Tower Tony Built like one big happy family. Maybe Tony's built the Hulk his own giant playroom for when he gets angry, and that there's an entire floor dedicated to Hawkeye and Black Widow's epic sparring sessions. Thor has his own apartment decorated in gold and red, with a red door and a giant doorknocker shaped like something humans still consider mythical, and Cap has a floor directly above Tony Stark and Pepper Potts that looks like something straight out of the forties – surround sound and flat screen notwithstanding, obviously. There's no way Tony Stark's going to let anyone live without the latest technology in _his house, damnit_.

Steve hasn't seen Tony since the attempted invasion. He's seen Natasha here and there, mostly when SHIELD needs something done quickly and with minimal fuss. Natasha says Hawkeye has dropped off the map for a bit, getting some help from a psychologist and reevaluating his career choices. Nobody he's spoken to has seen Bruce since the day Thor left.

He thinks he saw Pepper once, at a Whole Foods buying a sandwich. He wasn't entirely sure, but then that's to be expected when its your first time seeing someone in person, rather than on a screen or the front page of a newspaper.

Yesterday he ran to Coney Island and sat on the beach watching the Wonder Wheel. It was a sunny day, with a mild breeze blowing from the North. The pleasant smell of hot dogs and donuts wafted toward the sand when the wind hit from a particular angle. It was nice. He has a beard now, and his hair is short. The run had energized him, and he sat with a smile as he ate a bag of cotton candy and dug his feet into the sand. He'd taken his trainers off and stuffed his socks into them, not bothered about the sand chafing on the jog back to Bay Ridge.

Did that count as getting out there? He _felt_ for a few hours, with the salt air and the junk food, and for a moment when the smells and sounds and tastes all combined with the feel of the rough sand against his feet... maybe he really was alive again.

There was a brief moment when he returned to his apartment, sat on the fire escape, cracked a beer, and watched the evening sun fall behind the building across the street, that a lightness overcame him, even if only for a few seconds before there was screech of tires on the road and a string of expletives. He barked a short laugh and finished his beer. Someone looked up from the sidewalk, and he smiled and tipped the bottle to them before climbing back inside.

His phone was ringing. He ignored it and instead dropped the empty bottle on the coffee table and flicked the TV on. The phone rang again, and as the image of Tony Stark's Malibu Barbie Dream House falling into the ocean replays in slow motion on the screen, he slid his thumb across the phone screen to answer.

"Rogers."

"Have you made a decision about D.C.?"

"At this moment I'm more concerned about what's sliding off a cliff into the Pacific… anything I need to be worried about?"

"Under control. Honestly, if you want to get involved then go for it, but if it were me I wouldn't bother." Maria Hill's voice cut through the quiet drone of the ambient noise from the street and the television, and Steve frowned. The silence dragged for a few moments before she continued. "Did you see Iron Patriot? Talk about a fucking embarrassment… poor Rhodes."

"Were they in the house?"

More silence.

"They were in the house?"

There's a screeching noise in the background and Hill swore. There were some shuffling noises before she came back on the line.. "DC?"

He glanced back at the TV. There was a slow motion replay of the moment the missile hit the house playing. Then the picture cut to a clip of Tony surrounded by reporters and throwing a phone.

"I'm serious about the discharge, Maria." There's no reply, and he assumes she's maneuvering in traffic. Thirty seconds later he realizes there's no background noise and he feels his face heating up in anger. "Did you put me on mute?"

There's a knock on his door and he turns with eyes narrowing in suspicion. He steps quietly, avoiding the two creaky spots in the floor, and looks through the peephole.

"No need to get incredulous, Rogers. Your neighbors were having a minor domestic on the ground floor, I knew it was possible to use _fuck_ in a multitude of ways, but those two in 1C really know how to get the best out of the c-word."


	2. Chapter 2

So many people were standing. Some were stuck in their seats, waiting for their neighbours to exit with their heads bent at awkward angles, others were in the aisles and readying themselves to clog the walkway with their carry on.

Darcy waited patiently for the plane to empty before she stood. Her knees hurt from being in one position for five hours, and she could feel the man in the seat next to her glaring at her, his impatience almost as obnoxious as the Meatball Sub burps he'd been trying to hide the entire flight.

Eventually the crowd thinned and Darcy stood quickly before someone else could force their way past, pulled her small backpack down from the overhead compartment, and booked it off the plane as quickly as possible, just as she heard a quiet 'rrrrrp' come from the seat she had been in a few moments earlier.

She hadn't wanted to fly into New York but it was the only option SHIELD had given her when they had got wind of her return to the east coast. An agent was supposed to be meeting her to take her to Virginia. She would have flown straight there if it weren't for the leak three months earlier. Someone from Puente Antiguo had dropped a bunch of cellphone shots of herself and Jane during the battle. Suddenly their faces were in the National Enquirer, and Jane was walking around in hoodies and dark glasses avoiding photographers.

Nobody really took much notice of Darcy, probably because she wasn't the one who had been caught holding hands with a supposed god. A god who then went on to help stop an alien invasion thanks to his weird hammer and its ability to make him fly.

The agent who met her was tall and blonde. It was obvious the colour was a dye job; It would have been a good one if they had got the eyebrows right. He was carrying a sign that said Lady Darcy. She had been instructed to greet him like an old friend, so she gave him a peck on the cheek and a hug.

"Nobody told me I was getting my very own life sized Captain America action figure," she said, mouth still close to his ear.

He laughed loudly and patted her on the shoulder before taking over control of the baggage trolley. "My name's Chris," his voice was low and through gritted teeth, which were still bared in a jovial smile.

"What's with the cloak and dagger?"

"Honestly? I think it's a bit over the top but I'm not the one in charge so whatever."

"Huh." Darcy took her glasses off and cleaned them on her scarf. "So are you taking me to Culver in some kind of private jet? Helicopter? Invisible flying car?" she looked up at him as she put her glasses back on. Chris' expression didn't change. "We're driving, aren't we?"

...

The weird SHIELD pick up, and the insistence on New York became clear a few days later when Darcy's face was all over the cover of OK! Weekly.

It was Monday when Chris had pulled up outside the student accommodation she couldn't afford, reminded her that commenting to the media was 'not recommended', and drove off as soon as the passenger door was slammed shut.

On Thursday a heavily photoshopped Chris, and a headline that touted her as Thor's Secret Lover showed up in her local. Apparently Chris had been masquerading as Thor in various situations to ensure SHIELD had full control of the narrative after the leak

She was more concerned about Jane than herself, but they hadn't really been in contact since Darcy had gone to California. The family visit had been a disaster, and the tan had ended in a peeling nose, and the whole time she was thinking about Jane and whether or not she was doing okay with the media attention and being back in front of students.

On Saturday she got her answer, running in to Jane at a coffee shop off campus. It was a bit awkward, and after stilted hello's, Jane launched into a rant about a photographer who had been following her around, hiding in the bushes outside her apartment.

"I've been thinking about going to Paris."

Darcy took her coffee from the barista and turned back towards Jane. "I'm listening, you don't have to do the old say stupid shit until you can tell if the person is ignoring you or not thing."

Jane started walking towards a booth in the far corner. Her drink was in a to-go cup and she was already sucking away at the lid. "No, seriously," she said in between gulps. "I just want to get away from everything and I figured why the hell not?"

Darcy sat down heavily on the vinyl seat and unwrapped her scarf. "Do you have a job? That pays?"

"You managed all that time I didn't pay you."

"Yeah but I have student loans."

Jane huffed and crossed her arms. "I really hate it here at the moment."

Darcy shuffled around in the booth and put an arm around Jane's shoulders. She squeezed and reached over the table to reach for her drink, dragging Jane with her a little. Jane wriggled free. "Yeah dude, I get it. Did you see the latest? SHIELD's photoshopping one of their agents to look like Thor and then selling the stories to the hag rags."

"'Ew, really?"

"Why did you think there was a photographer following you around? You're famous."

Jane shrugged and raised her cup to her mouth. "I just figured it was SHIELD. We did kind of tell them to fuck off after Tromsø."

"Seriously lady you need to get out more."

They sat in silence for a while, and Darcy pulled out her phone. She The morbid curiosity was getting the best of her, and she found herself on E! peering at the photo of herself with 'Thor', and then scrolling down to the comments where there was a debate raging about whether or not she was a secret agent assigned to keep him away from regular humans.

Darcy heard a giggle, and the glanced up. A girl was making a show of looking away from her, but she could still see the phone held down by her hip, aimed toward Jane and herself.

"Come on, let's get out of here."

Jane meanders after her through the doors of the coffee shop and out onto the street. She can feel eyes and cameras on her, and her arms start to feel itchy and hot. She grabs Jane's hand and squeezes it.

"I hate it here too, honey."


	3. Chapter 3

"Well well if it isn't America's favorite slut, here to pick up some chicks in the lunch line."

His shoulders stiffened just enough to notice, and Maria put on her best smirk before Steve Rogers' expressionless gaze met hers.

"I can't believe you'd cheat on me with someone so... civilian. What have we come to, sugartits?" The gaze went from bored to withering, which only encouraged her, she turned her voice wistful and gazed off into the distance. "I feel like we've been drifting apart, like a pair of sailboats on opposing tides."

"Stop it." he pulled three sandwiches out of the cabinet and shuffled forward. Maria leaned over him and grabbed his chicken salad, swapping it out for a roast beef. "Hey!"

"I wanted the chicken salad, the one left in there is chicken and avocado."

He narrowed his eyes. "So have the chicken and avocado."

"I don't like avocado."

He growled a little and whipped around, her stomach fluttered a little and she looked down confused at the reaction. "Everybody likes avocado." Maria gulped and licked her lips.

"Jay-sus what's the hold up?" An arm was shoving past her shoulder reaching for the chicken and avocado sandwich. Maria turned around slowly and came face to face with Foster's assistant, Daria or whatever her name was. "Oh, sorry ma'am didn't realise it was you. Not that I would have said anything differently, because I wouldn't... it probably more would have gone Jay-sus ma'am whats the hold up because I am goddaamn starving and that is the last thing in that cabinet that doesn't look like it's been there since that dude in front of you was running around in booty shorts."

Maria blinked and turned back around without saying anything.

"I don't know about you, but I, and also America, think you should bring back the booty shorts."

Maria kept ignoring her and grabbed an orange juice out of the refrigerator.

Dora or Dabney or... Darcy that' was it seemed to get the hint and shut up. Maria paid for her food and walked off to her office without a word.

...

"Well if it isn't SHIELD's sandwich thief, here to eat her ill begotten goods."

Maria started, her skin tingling as she turned through the door. He was sitting at her desk, feet propped up on it, mouth half filled with food. He licked his lips before he swallowed and she silently berated herself for staring at his adam's apple and the rise and fall of his chest under the tight t-shirt.

"What do you want, Steve?"

He shoved his heel against a small stack of papers on her desk and pushed it over the edge. "Thought we should talk about that."

She looked down at the copy of US Weekly. "Oh baby I didn't think you cared."

"Is this my life now? I can't even go out for a drink with a work colleague without the press crying secret rendezvous?"

Maria shrugged and sat down heavily on the couch. "Isn't this what you signed up for?" It had been unfortunate that Agent 13 had been spotted exiting the bodega at the same time as Rogers, but the photo of Maria and Steve at the bar had been sold to the magazine by a photographer that had been paid by a SHIELD front.

"I signed up to be a soldier, not a celebrity." He put his lunch down and ran a hand through his hair. Maria felt sorry for him for a very brief moment, before being reminded of his previous career.

"You remember that bit when you were an Actual Movie Star right? In the forties? When you were in The Movies?"

Steve groaned and rubbed his face. Maria ate her lunch and drank her juice. Steve stared at the door.

When she had finished, she wiped the corner of her mouth with a paper napkin and stood, took the two steps to the other side of the desk, and shoved her hands under Steve's armpits in a futile attempt to get him out of her seat.

"I need my desk back, Rogers."

"Make me."

She tugged a couple more times before giving up and instead moving to the other side of the chair. She lifted his legs down one by one and leaned over, hands on either of the armrests so she could push him toward the door. He looked up at her and for a moment she thought he batted his eyelashes. Her heart skipped a beat.

"Welcome to the noughties, Steve," she said as she pushed him out the door and placed a foot on the chair between his legs. "Everyone wants a piece of you, and they've all got cameraphones."

She shoved hard with her leg and he went skittering off down the corridor. For a brief moment she swore she saw him lift a middle finger.


End file.
